


give it a week

by benefaris



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Fake Dating, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-01 22:52:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15783756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benefaris/pseuds/benefaris
Summary: Claudia tells Soren that she's dating Rayla to shut him up. After being teased about being single, Soren tells his sister that he has a date with Marcos- too bad they're both lying. But for the sake of their pride, the siblings are about to pull every trick in the book to make sure their fabricated relationships actually happen.





	give it a week

**Author's Note:**

> i am...... an idiot with too much time on my hands. egged on by a discussion on discord! the texts were started off by @writtenideas and @mayathewriter on ao3, so go follow them for quality tdp content!

Claudia likes to think of herself as a reasonable person.

Pushing it, she'd also call herself a good person. She didn't do stuff out of spite, or lash out in anger, or be overly negative about anything. But she would also say that those rules doesn't apply while she was with her brother. 

 

As soon as she enters her house after studying at the library, she grimaces when she sees Soren pop his head up from behind the sofa (Dorito crumbs still around his mouth)- he’d been watching reruns of some bad show, and he shakes a Gatorade bottle towards her as a greeting. She frowns while throwing the keys onto the dining table, raising one unimpressed eyebrow at him. When Soren's grin stretches wider, she kicks her boots off more aggressively than needed and matches his stare. She knows exactly how this exchange was going to go; she’d already been dealing with it since she started tutoring the girl she liked.

"So," Soren  _drawls_. A red flag already, and paired with the ugly, shit eating expression he has, the more rational part of Claudia tells herself to back up before her good mood is ruined, but she's feeling confrontational. Her day has been full of little victories, and the world be thrice-damned if her jock brother was about to ruin it for her.

"What," Claudia folds her arms, stopping midway through the living room and waiting for Soren's reaction- her brother has the balls to smirk.

"A brother can't care about his sister?" Soren sets his drink down and turns his entire body around now, leaning on the back of the sofa casually. When Claudia doesn't reply, Soren raises his hands as if in defense. The gesture is almost real, had it not been for the glint in his eyes, "Alright, alright. I was just wondering how studying  _alone_   _with_   _the girl you like_ was going."

He puts so much emphasis onto each word that Claudia has to resist the urge to immediately tackle him, folding her arms defensively instead. "Pretty well, actually."

Which wasn't a lie. Claudia really thinks she connected with her at tutoring today! She and Rayla had been (as always) talking about Biology, which accidentally led them to talk about how shit Mr. Volpe's teaching was, which then led to Claudia making a good joke that Rayla had actually laughed at. She was always so quiet since she was new to the school, so she didn't have too many new friends aside from Callum and Ezran. And- well, Claudia had never seen her laugh. And, as it so happened, Rayla  _snorted_  when she laughed, which was so cute it had dethroned 'thick Scottish accent' from its top spot on her "cutest things about Rayla" list. (…Said list was getting so long that Claudia was starting to get embarrassed just thinking about it.)

Claudia thought that Rayla should laugh more because she wanted to hear pretty things like that more often. She had also, with a burst of courage, actually told her that, managing not to screw up the delivery. Rayla had (to her delight!) blushed, and now here she was, waist deep in feelings and a heartbeat that refused to settle down. She'd spent the walk home from the library workshopping different jokes to tell her for the next study session they had. She didn't think she was the kind to deliver any good jokes, but if it made Rayla happy...  _well_.

And now her brother was ruining it. With that stupid grin.

“Thanks for asking. It’s good.” She finishes, steely. Soren laughs.

“Sure it is, little sister.” He says- and he says it like he’s won, which infuriates Claudia more than anything. Deciding it’s not worth it and she’d rather stay in her room and daydream about a certain exchange student, Claudia turns on her heel and begins to march upstairs to her room. Then, when she’s halfway up the stairs, Soren opens his big fat mouth and adds, “How is pining after the love of your life going?”

Claudia feels a furious blush rise to her cheeks, and she wheels around and points a finger at him. “Shut up! Soren, I swear I’ll-!”

Soren’s voice raises an octave higher, clasping his hands together and swaying. “’Rayla’s hair looks so good in a braided bun!’ ‘I don’t understand one thing she’s saying in her accent but she’s so hot!’ ‘I’m neeever gonna get with her with her Soren, oh  _woe is me_!’” It’s a very bad impression of her- so bad that it shouldn’t even be making her mad- but Claudia’s mind isn’t good at listening to reason when her brother is involved.

“I asked her out,” Claudia says. It’s a blatant lie, and she sort of feels like throwing up a millisecond after the words leave her mouth.

But Soren- Soren actually does a double take, and the grin slides off his face, and Claudia is suddenly overcome with a pride she didn’t know she had. He flounders for a second more, before he squints at her, “That’s bullshit.”

 “It’s not.” (Claudia!) “She said yes.” (Claudia, stop.) “We’re going on a date this Friday after school.” (Claudia, no!) She manages to squash her conscience down, focusing solely on how her brother. The stunned, almost impressed look on her older brother’s face boosts her ego long enough for her to add, “So, how’s it being single?” 

Soren splutters, the red on his face a sharp contrast to his newly dyed hair. He wipes the Dorito crumbs off of his face. “I- I am not single!”

Claudia shrugs, riding on the high of the feeling of winning. “Not last I checked.” 

 _‘Besides,’_  she thinks,  _‘That’s way too fast of a retort to be real. No way he suddenly has a boyfriend as soon as I said that I did.’_

Soren hesitates for a second more, before glaring at her and stoutly saying, “It’s Marcos. We’re going on a date too.”

Claudia badly suppresses a laugh- Marcos, his best friend, and the cross country champion that Soren would never have the guts to ask out? Absolutely a lie. …And from the look that Soren gave her, he was thinking similarly. The coincidence was too much; they knew the other was lying. But what they both didn’t have was proof.

So Claudia was safe. Just for one more day, until school started on Monday. Wednesday would be risking it, but she’s sure she’ll be safe because, just like her, Soren would have to scramble to fix the Marcos situation. He’ll need two days to muster up the courage to ask him out, even for a fake situation. Soren will also develop a guilty conscience, and he’ll definitely get sad about not being to really date Marcos, so it stretches the window of time she has to ask Rayla out even longer to Thursday.

 And Friday- Friday was their supposed  _date_ , so she has to get it done by then.

 That gives her a week.

“Okay, fine. I’m glad you have a boyfriend.” Claudia says quietly and she pulls him in for a hug. “Especially with the guy you’ve liked for so long.”

“Yeah,” Soren says, sounding so pained Claudia nearly feels bad. “You too. With Rayla.”

Without a word, Soren detaches himself from her sits back down and takes a swig of his bright blue sports drink. Likewise, Claudia slowly climbs the stairs; she hears him stuff a handful of Doritos into his mouth. The crunch feels like a bad omen. 

Claudia runs straight into her room, slamming and locking the door before dramatically falling onto her bed. Her heart hurts, and it feels like it’s about to burst. She just lies there for what feels like hours, biting her lip. How was she going to get herself out of this...? She doesn't like her options; fake date Rayla and probably lose all the work she had put into their friendship, or actually confess, which was an obvious no because... no. For all the smack she gave her brother about not being brave enough to ask Marcos, she quietly admits to herself that she was a lot worse.

Her phone buzzes in her pocket.

 

  

**_rayla_!!!**

_thanks for tutoring me. see you next Saturday_

_looking forward to it : )_

 

 

That’s the first time she used an emoji while texting with her.  _That’s so cute_. Rayla is excited to see her, the bookworm-nerd Claudia. The prettiest girl in the world was looking forward to meeting  _her_. She was going to study with her next Saturday, and talk about science, and then she would get her to laugh at her bad jokes, and then-!

Claudia swallows. She was going to  _die_.

 

 

 


End file.
